The flyaway tycoon who finds it easy to take risks

PEOPLE'S champions are not always wealthy. But easyGroup trailblazer Stelios Haji-Ioannou became a working-class hero while proving that one of the best ways to make a small fortune is to start with a big one.

No-frills easyJet, which took off from Luton seven years ago, carried 13m passengers this year. It made Stelios £280m when it came to market, and he still has a 22% stake worth a further £300m.

The airline's profits have risen to £71m - but its founder is getting off the plane to develop some of his newer vehicles. He has handed over the chairmanship of easyJet to former Vickers boss Sir Colin Chandler.

'If I have a skill, it's starting companies rather than running them day to day. I have a low threshold of boredom,' said Stelios (like Madonna, he tends to be known by his first name).

There is another twist to the tale. Some City funds disapprove of big shareholders being chairmen. Co-operative Insurance voted against reappointing Stelios as a director. But he says he left of his own accord. 'I like taking risks. And taking uncalculated risks is the privilege of the entrepreneur, not a chairman.'

Not many interviews with tycoons are conducted across a plastic table in a MacDonald's restaurant. But in London's Swiss Cottage, MacDonald's has an easy-Internet Cafe which needs checking. Stelios swigged a Diet Coke as he talked. Though he has been to Holland and back on the day, he is amusing and brimming with energy. Staff say working with him gives a continuous adrenaline rush.

He chooses his words carefully. He has been called a 'buccaneer'. He finds this unflattering. 'Buccaneers take short cuts. We didn't at easyJet. Buccaneers are not seen as being entirely straight either, but we were and will continue to be.'

He is often compared to Sir Richard Branson. Although both control strong brand names, started airlines that upset the establishment and have an eye for publicity, the differences are more apparent than the similarities.

Branson's companies avoid capital markets while the Haji-Ioannou stable aims to be quoted. Some might argue that they also make more money. But Stelios is complimentary about his rival. 'You cannot say the man that sold half of Virgin Music and half of Virgin Atlantic doesn't make himself money.'

Respect and the doubts

EasyJet was the second float for Stelios. His shipping company Stelmar Tankers had already gone public. The City respects his achievement, but seems to have lingering doubts. Stelios went on: 'I'm not part of the establishment, that's not what I want to do. I like the challenge of proving people wrong. When they say that something cannot be done I like to say - I'll try, I'll show you how.

'Nobody likes fat cats. People are always suspicious of people in grey pinstriped suits with a Rolls-Royce and a chauffeur. It means a lot to me that I cannot go to Luton Airport without at least two people coming up to me and saying - thank you for starting easyJet.'

The drinks-trolley-free airline floated successfully two years ago, and recently swallowed British Airways' spin-off Go in a £374m deal. Its success has allowed the brand to grab other low-cost opportunities through incubator company easyGroup.

The next to go public will be easyCar, which has 6,000 cars for hire in 35 locations. Though it has been losing up to £3m a year, it expects to have 12,000 vehicles next year and 24,000 in 2004. 'By then we should be turning over £100m and making profits of 10%,' said Stelios. 'That's a good size business to bring to the market.' If the cars are returned dirty, the hirer pays a £10 penalty. Most get them cleaned.

Stelios's biggest disaster is easyInternet Cafe. The first was opened at London's Victoria Station in 1999. It is backed by venture capital group Apax with £10m, Societe Generale (£10m) and Hewlett Packard (£15m). HP supplies the monitors and helped to develop the software. The chain will have cost £80m by the time it is fully developed. Customers pay through vending machines instead of staff.

'After easyJet we were confident of the easy concept, but this grew too fast too quickly and costs got out of control,' explained Stelios. 'The dotcom bubble burst, so I managed it myself and put in more of my own money. It has almost turned the corner, but flotation is a long way off.

'The easyMoney credit card business has a way to go, too. Before we started we asked ourselves whether the easy brand would work on its own. That was not the case, or isn't yet the case. The cheapest money goes to the richest; the poorer you are, the more you pay. With easyMoney you choose your credit terms online. We'll stick with it because we'll learn more about the easy brand.'

There is more to branding than bargain-basement pricing. Stelios distinguishes between price-flexible products and others. 'If you have to move oil from one side of the world to another you have to charter tankers, irrespective of cost. Price flexible is when you make something cheaper people will find a reason to buy.'

So when easyJet started flying on 10 November, 1995, its cheap fares meant people found a reason to fly to Glasgow. Although there have been hiccups, it is broadly the same with cars.

Family fallout

Stelios is a Greek Cypriot, born in Athens on Valentine's Day 1967. He is famously single, something he will not talk about.

'I was always coming to England. My father is an Anglophile. When I was at school in Athens I was having private tuition to take my A-levels so I could go to university here.' He read economics at the London School of Economics and shipping finance at City of London University. 'I'm a great believer in academia, and lecture when I can. I'm going to the London Business School to talk about yield management - how pricing changes with demand.'

At the age of 22, Stelios returned to Greece to run the family company, Troodos Shipping, but soon branched out on his own, starting easyJet with £5m from his father, Loucas.

Talk of the family brings up easyJet's prospectus. It outlines some colourful incidents, including litigation by his uncle Michael to claim a share of easyJet, which could worry investors. Stelios declared: 'It's my family, I can't choose them. Whatever happened, happened. I cannot change it.'

The latest environmental disaster, the tanker Prestige's break-up off the coast of Spain, reminds him of his own experience in 1991 when his tanker Haven blew up outside Genoa, killing five people and spewing 50,000 tonnes of oil into the sea. Although the accident was down to human error, Stelios was charged with manslaughter, then exonerated. He took the lesson with him to easyJet and has insisted that safety is not expensive compared to disaster.

His future projects include easyDorm, a plan to provide £5-a-night hotel rooms for backpackers. First comes another online operation, easyCinema.

'We hope to finalise a West End location early next year,' revealed Stelios. 'The earlier you book to see a movie, the less you'll pay. We'll start at 20p.' That could upset film distributors, who get a percentage of revenue from all seats sold.

'We'll cross that bridge when we get there. I'm saying I can make more money than they can. I intend to offer a lump sum for a film for a week as a one-off payment. I know it will work.'